After reading Rob's thread and drooling over his fantastic pictures I pulled the trigger on a Rizzo stealth 7 from ebay. It arrived this afternoon after I came to the disappointing conclusion that there was nothing good in the house to eat for lunch. Needless to say my appetite was quickly focused elsewhere.
Before I post pics (I wish they were as good as Rob's) I'd like to talk about the guitar itself, so as to help out anyone trying to decide whether to pick one up or not.
Overall I think the build quality is very good, on price point you can't really go wrong here. There are some small imperfections that I noticed, namely uneven filing on the binding in a couple of spots, a small imperfection in the paintwork (it's not a ding or a chip just something weird that looks like someone painted over a ding) on the longer leg (for lack of a better term) and a small chip in the recess behind the bridge. These are only very small issues and are by no means a deal breaker, it's just the kind of small inconsistency that comes with factory made guitars, though to their defence, I've heard of way worse issues on hand made, high end guitars.
Bridge, pickups and hardware are what you would expect of their respective manufacturers, it's awesome to see the continued use of high end parts on upper mid-range guitars.
For reference, I have played on Ibanez necks exclusively for the last year yet had no trouble at all adjusting to the thickness of the stealth. I would definitely recommend this neck to anyone who gets hand cramps and stuff from thin necks but can't really do their thing on a Schecter size neck being that it sits somewhere between the 2 extremes, very comfy no matter what you're doing. It's worth mentioning that the action out of the box was wickedly low, perhaps too low as there was a pretty noticeable buzz in the low frets, which could be more indicative of needing a neck adjustment than the bridge being too low (because it wasn't too low at all).
Now on to the things that I didn't enjoy.
The strap button placement is all wrong. I have 2 wide rides straps with the "sticky" pad and there is plenty of neck dive, not to mention that it puts the guitar in a very strange position (for me) when standing. Thankfully due to being tucked reasonably out of sight, moving the bridge side strap button means the original hole is virtually invisible, so that's tomorrow's job.
I'm not really a floyd user (but I buy floyd/edge bridge guitars exclusively, I just can't get comfy on other bridge types), but before I locked it down (t-no represent!) I had a bit of a poke at the bridge. Tuning stability and everything was fine once I got it set up (7 days in transit with unlocked nut plates will make short work of even the best setup) but I found myself having to exert way too much force on the bridge to get basic squeals and dives going. Vibrato and slight accents were fine but I think this just comes with the territory of floyd 7's, keeping that low B tight and tasty takes a hefty amount of spring tension lest you wind the claw right into the body. Though the last time I had my Universe floating I remember it being much friendlier, though I'm sure a frequent Floyd user would have no troubles at all getting used to this.
Upper fret access is a bit of a hot button issue with me, I play very much classical style so squishing my hand up is not something I enjoy or am comfortable doing. However the upper-fret drawback to this shape is obvious to anyone at first glance so it's almost not worth mentioning except to say that it's not really any worse than the M-II I used to own. Unpleasant on first impression but I'm sure once I get used to it I won't notice.
Lastly, one of the things that really turned me on to this guitar was the thought of having an EMG guitar again and running said EMGs at 18V. Much to my disappointment, you cannot fit 2 batteries inside the control cavity, even after removing the battery bracket, which led to me sitting down with a rasp and carving out the cavity so as to squeeze another battery in. So a little disappointing to not have a separate battery cavity but again nothing here that some experience with tools and some patience can't fix, so again no deal breakers here, especially if you own a dremel.
I bought this guitar to be my main stage guitar and replace my RG2127X as it is much too rare and special to suffer the slings and arrows of live abuse. The bang for buck here is on par with what you'd expect from it's competitors in Schecters and LTDs making it a fantastic guitar in all aspects, deceptively so for being under $USD1000.
With that out of the way, here are some pics.
Before I post pics (I wish they were as good as Rob's) I'd like to talk about the guitar itself, so as to help out anyone trying to decide whether to pick one up or not.
Overall I think the build quality is very good, on price point you can't really go wrong here. There are some small imperfections that I noticed, namely uneven filing on the binding in a couple of spots, a small imperfection in the paintwork (it's not a ding or a chip just something weird that looks like someone painted over a ding) on the longer leg (for lack of a better term) and a small chip in the recess behind the bridge. These are only very small issues and are by no means a deal breaker, it's just the kind of small inconsistency that comes with factory made guitars, though to their defence, I've heard of way worse issues on hand made, high end guitars.
Bridge, pickups and hardware are what you would expect of their respective manufacturers, it's awesome to see the continued use of high end parts on upper mid-range guitars.
For reference, I have played on Ibanez necks exclusively for the last year yet had no trouble at all adjusting to the thickness of the stealth. I would definitely recommend this neck to anyone who gets hand cramps and stuff from thin necks but can't really do their thing on a Schecter size neck being that it sits somewhere between the 2 extremes, very comfy no matter what you're doing. It's worth mentioning that the action out of the box was wickedly low, perhaps too low as there was a pretty noticeable buzz in the low frets, which could be more indicative of needing a neck adjustment than the bridge being too low (because it wasn't too low at all).
Now on to the things that I didn't enjoy.
The strap button placement is all wrong. I have 2 wide rides straps with the "sticky" pad and there is plenty of neck dive, not to mention that it puts the guitar in a very strange position (for me) when standing. Thankfully due to being tucked reasonably out of sight, moving the bridge side strap button means the original hole is virtually invisible, so that's tomorrow's job.
I'm not really a floyd user (but I buy floyd/edge bridge guitars exclusively, I just can't get comfy on other bridge types), but before I locked it down (t-no represent!) I had a bit of a poke at the bridge. Tuning stability and everything was fine once I got it set up (7 days in transit with unlocked nut plates will make short work of even the best setup) but I found myself having to exert way too much force on the bridge to get basic squeals and dives going. Vibrato and slight accents were fine but I think this just comes with the territory of floyd 7's, keeping that low B tight and tasty takes a hefty amount of spring tension lest you wind the claw right into the body. Though the last time I had my Universe floating I remember it being much friendlier, though I'm sure a frequent Floyd user would have no troubles at all getting used to this.
Upper fret access is a bit of a hot button issue with me, I play very much classical style so squishing my hand up is not something I enjoy or am comfortable doing. However the upper-fret drawback to this shape is obvious to anyone at first glance so it's almost not worth mentioning except to say that it's not really any worse than the M-II I used to own. Unpleasant on first impression but I'm sure once I get used to it I won't notice.
Lastly, one of the things that really turned me on to this guitar was the thought of having an EMG guitar again and running said EMGs at 18V. Much to my disappointment, you cannot fit 2 batteries inside the control cavity, even after removing the battery bracket, which led to me sitting down with a rasp and carving out the cavity so as to squeeze another battery in. So a little disappointing to not have a separate battery cavity but again nothing here that some experience with tools and some patience can't fix, so again no deal breakers here, especially if you own a dremel.
I bought this guitar to be my main stage guitar and replace my RG2127X as it is much too rare and special to suffer the slings and arrows of live abuse. The bang for buck here is on par with what you'd expect from it's competitors in Schecters and LTDs making it a fantastic guitar in all aspects, deceptively so for being under $USD1000.
With that out of the way, here are some pics.
